1. Jimmy Rollins, 2000-14 Phillies
Let’s be honest, was anyone really going to come close to Jimmy Rollins? Will anyone ever come close again?
Rollins gets the top spot on this list for a slew of reasons: his numbers, his overflowing trophy case, and his longevity.
Drafted out of high school by the Phillies in the second round of the 1996 June Amateur Draft, Rollins spent almost his entire professional career with the Phillies and should have been a lifer.
Rollins made a brief debut in late September 2000, but really got started the following year, when he played in 158 games, led the NL in at-bats, triples, and stolen bases, leading him to finish third in Rookie of the Year voting.
Playing almost an entire slate of regular-season games was almost a regular occurrence for Rollins, who played 150+ games in 10 of his 15 seasons with the club. Over 15 seasons in Philadelphia, he hit .267/.327/.424 with a .751 OPS.
In 2007, he led MLB by playing in all 162 games, making 778 plate appearances, and 716 at-bats, and led the NL in runs scored and triples, earning his first Gold Glove award, and the only MVP and Silver Slugger of his career. In a season eerily reminiscent of Bryce Harper’s 2021, Rollins was not an All-Star in his MVP year; his three All-Star seasons were already behind him.
The following season, he helped the Phillies win their second championship in franchise history. He’d go on to win three more Gold Gloves, too.
On the franchise leaderboards, he ranks sixth all-time in bWAR among position players, eighth in oWAR, and fourth in dWAR. The only person to play more games in a Phillies uniform was Mike Schmidt, but Rollins was the one to beat him in hits.
The biggest endorsement of our number-one comes from the number-two himself; in 2008, Larry Bowa said,
"“I wasn’t a great player. I was a good player. Jimmy is a great player.”"